


Radio Silence

by mardia



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Aftermath of a Case, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Future Fic, M/M, Porn with plot and feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 22:21:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7863415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mardia/pseuds/mardia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It should have felt more awkward, maybe, standing this close to Nightingale in public, the two of us staring into each other’s eyes--but all I could feel was that same bone-deep relief I had when I’d heard the Jag approaching--I was still alive, somehow, and Nightingale was here. (Future-fic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Radio Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Huge, huge thanks to jamjarring for her excellent beta, both in Britpicking and in pointing out which parts of the plot didn't make sense. Title comes from the James Blake song of the same name. 
> 
> This fic contains descriptions of violence that I'd consider to be in keeping with the general tone of the series, but if you'd like to know more details before reading, feel free to message me (either here or on my tumblr @ themardia) and I'd be happy to elaborate for you.

There was an odd ringing noise in my ears as I half-walked, half-stumbled down the stairs. Williams, the PC assigned to me for the case, was dragging me along in her wake, her hand holding the inside of my arm in a death grip. 

“We should clear the building,” I said, trying my best not to shout. 

“We already did,” PC Williams told me, glancing over her shoulder to give me a worried look. “Remember? You had me clear the building when you found that...bomb-thing.”

Right. “Okay,” I mumbled. “Okay, that’s good.” None of my limbs seemed to want to work right. “Good work, us.”

“Yeah, I’d say so,” Williams agreed, and I recognized that placating tone. I also recognized that she’d shifted to tuck her arm into mine, so as better to support my weight. I considered trying to make a show out of walking out of the office building on my own power, but I was frankly too grateful for the help to play the tough man. 

It was better once we’d got outside, once I could breathe in some fresh air--fresh by London standards, anyway--and stare up, dazzled, at the blue sky. 

“Here,” Williams said, gently guiding me down to sit down on the curb of the pavement waving off the crowd milling about. “Just take a seat and catch your breath for a moment.”

I took the invitation gratefully, tipping my head up towards the sun and closing my eyes, suddenly exhausted. Diffusing a demon trap will do that to you--particularly a demon trap full of shrapnel and constructed by the Faceless Man. 

Over the sound of the agitated crowd of residents and passerby, I could hear sirens approaching. Williams looks down at me, her face pale beneath the freckles, and said, “So was that bomb the work of your Masked Man, then?”

“The Faceless Man,” I corrected her. “And yeah, it was him. He’s...rather fixated on killing me these days.”

“Can I ask why?”

I blinked up at her, obscurely surprised. It had been a while since I’d had to explain the story of how I’d collected my very own Moriarty--everyone else in my life already knew. The smart ones were keeping their distance. “I’ve made something of a habit of pissing him off these last few years,” I told her, staring out at the crowd as I listed off, “We keep finding his lairs, arresting his assorted minions, digging up his victims…” It was still difficult to gather my thoughts, which was perhaps why I said next, “Also the part where I cut his arm off six months ago really didn’t help.”

It wasn’t until I heard Williams gasp that I realized just what I’d admitted to, and how it would sound. “You cut his arm off?” At my reluctant nod, she gaped for a moment before demanding, “What the fu--no one said _anything_ about you lot carrying machetes around with you.”

“I didn’t use a machete,” I told her, and then the backup had officially arrived, and there was no chance for us to talk after that.

I mostly ignored all the carry-on around me, except to assure the bomb squad that yes, there had been a device, but it had been defused, and no, I didn’t think it was a good idea for anyone to go back into the building, not until Nightingale had cleared it. It was all something of a blur, but at one point there were paramedics who tried to get me into the ambulance. I waved them off, but accepted the shock blanket. Williams tucked it even more firmly around my shoulders--I think she’d appointed herself my personal guard. Also I was shivering.

“Well, of _course_ the blast radius doesn’t look right,” I heard her telling someone nearby, exasperated. “Grant’s Falcon, isn’t he. He held up his hand and it all went backwards, he made all that shrapnel fly away from us like we had some sort of force field--”

“We did,” I said, but quietly enough that they couldn’t hear me. It didn’t matter, anyway. 

A few minutes after that, Williams thrust a bottle of juice in my face. “Here,” she said, waggling it a little. “Drink this.”

I blinked at her. “I’m all right.”

Williams set her jaw at this, and I watched as she said, “Drink the damn juice, Grant.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, but took the bottle anyway. “I’m fairly sure I still outrank you, Williams, shock blanket or no.”

“That’s fine, sir, so long as you drink the juice,” Williams said, clearly satisfied with herself. 

Just then, I heard the unmistakable sound of the Jag’s engine, and turned my head in relief to see it wheel up to the scene. The second it was parked, Nightingale got out of the car, calling out my name. 

“Here, sir,” I called back, clambering to my feet. The blanket slipped off my shoulders as I stood up. “I’m all right,” I insisted as he strode forward, holding his cane in the tight grip that signaled he’d be perfectly happy to swing it about as a club if the need arose. 

Nightingale didn’t look ready to take me at my word, his face pale and his eyes wide as he kept striding towards me, his free hand falling to the back of my neck as he ordered, “Look at me, Peter.”

I looked back at him, as steadily as I could while he searched my face for anything, any adverse effects from the demon trap, any sign that the Faceless Man might’ve left one last nasty surprise for us. It should have felt more awkward, maybe, standing this close to Nightingale in public, the two of us staring into each other’s eyes--but all I could feel was that same bone-deep relief I had when I’d heard the Jag approaching--I was still alive, somehow, and Nightingale was here. Idly, I noticed that Nightingale’s lashes were surprisingly long, just curling up at the ends--and finally Nightingale looked away, glancing behind me at the office building, the tension in his face easing. He took a step back, clearly reassured, but kept a hand on my shoulder. “What the hell happened?” he asked. 

“Demon trap,” I explained, waving vaguely at the building behind us, the Fire Brigade and the bomb squad all milling about. “Nasty one too, shrapnel along with everything else. No sign of him, though.”

Nightingale’s mouth tightened at that, and he pressed, “But you’re all right.”

“I’m fine,” I said, and Williams interjected from where she was standing at my left, “He hasn’t actually been cleared by the paramedics yet, sir.”

I turned to give her a look, and she said, only somewhat defensively, “Well, you haven’t.”

Nightingale had one of his eyebrows raised at Williams, but all he said was, “Well, we can’t have that. Peter, come with me, please.”

But instead of taking me to the ambulances, or to Inspector Warren, or even to the Jag so he could see me off to UCH, Nightingale led me through the crowd to a nearby alleyway a few streets off, where much of the noise and commotion was muffled. 

“Are you all right?” Nightingale quietly asked, and I looked at him, confused. 

“I’m fine, sir, I told you.” Nightingale didn’t try to argue with this, and he didn’t change the subject either. He just looked at me, patient and worried, his mouth an unhappy line in his face, and I could feel the thick, numbing fog in my head start to clear at last, because I remembered the last time that Nightingale had that look on his face, what the Faceless Man had done to put it there. 

“He’s escalating, sir,” I said, the words heavy on my tongue as I said them aloud. “He couldn’t have known for sure I’d be there when it went off, he just--set it anyway.” And when it had gone off, the shrapnel would’ve sliced through any sod unlucky enough to be standing there, never mind the magical after-effects left behind, brains disintegrating on magic, feathers where a person’s arm should be--

“I agree,” Nightingale said. He looked at me for a moment longer, and then said, more gently, “You did well with the demon trap back there.” A corner of his mouth tilted up, as he added, “Not that you should need me to tell you that.”

“Yeah, feedback’s pretty much instantaneous with demon traps,” I replied, but the words sounded stilted, and the worry returned to Nightingale’s eyes. 

“Peter,” he began again, and abruptly I just didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to think about his worry, how justified it was, didn’t want to dwell on the sight of rusty nails and sharp bits of metal floating in front of my eyes while high-pitched screaming rang in my ears. 

“I’m fine,” I said, too quickly to be believable. “I’m just--tired.” Oh God. “Jesus Christ, I’m so--I’m so fucking tired.” The admission burst out of me before I even knew what I was saying, and I found myself leaning back against the brick wall behind me, my knees suddenly unsteady. 

“Peter,” Nightingale said, quickly coming forward to grip my shoulders reassuringly, his hands warm and firm through the thin material of my lightweight jacket. “Of course you’re tired.”

I would’ve almost preferred it if he’d frowned at me and told me to pull myself together; Nightingale’s compassion brought a lump to my throat as the reality of my life came crashing down around my head. “I’m so tired,” I said, looking into Nightingale’s face, into his gray eyes as I said, “I’m so tired, and he keeps _coming for me_ and I can’t--at this rate, I’ll be dead within the year.”

Nightingale’s hands tightened on my shoulders, bruisingly hard for a moment, as he said, fiercely, “You will not.”

I closed my eyes against that, against the look on his face. “You can’t promise that.”

“Yes, I can,” Nightingale insisted, relentless. “Peter, _look_ at me.” I opened my eyes and looked into his face, only vaguely aware of his hand moving to rest at the back of my neck, his fingers warm against my skin. “You are not going to be assassinated at the hands of this wretched, scheming, one-armed bastard of a magician. I absolutely _refuse_ to let that happen.”

Somehow, I managed to raise an eyebrow at this, even as I was wearily leaning forward into Nightingale’s touch, into his reassuring grip, preferring it to the hard wall behind me. “Is that an order, then?”

“If it has to be,” Nightingale answered, his voice quieter now. He wasn’t moving away, either, still keeping me close with that tight grip of his, looking into my face like he could bend the universe to his will if he just worked hard enough.

We stayed like that for a moment, leaning into each other, and as I came back to myself--I became aware of how we were touching each other, not just the intimacy of it, but the _intent_ behind it. I wasn’t looking at Nightingale to catalogue the expression on his face, but just because I wanted to look at him, to take in the way his hair was falling over his forehead, how wide his grey eyes seemed in this moment, how his lips had parted ever so slightly.

I might’ve chalked it up to shock, or to the nervous breakdown I’d been putting off for months--years if I’m being honest. Except that Nightingale was doing the exact same thing, looking at my face like I’d never seen him look at it before, like maybe he’d never allowed himself to look at me the way he was looking now, staring right into my eyes before his gaze dropped lower, to my mouth, and then--and then he was moving closer, or perhaps I was, and Nightingale’s warm breath was gusting softly across my mouth, and then--and then.

Days later, I wouldn’t be able to explain why it happened in that particular moment, and not any of the other times I’d almost got myself killed--but I could say that it was Nightingale who kissed me first, who leaned in and fitted his mouth to mine. Just like I could tell you that I kissed him back. Immediately and without any hesitation, I kissed him back, until he was pressing me into the wall with a low groan, his body flush against mine while I sucked on his tongue, my hands stealing into his hair, the strands soft against my fingers. 

And then, as quickly as it had started, it was over--Nightingale pushed himself away, stumbling backwards, and I opened my eyes, dazed, my mouth wet and my body still remembering the weight of him against me. 

Nightingale was staring at me once more, but in a much less reassuring way this time. Fair play, though, I was probably staring back at him in much the same manner. I had to force myself not to babble the first thing that came to mind. Or let my hand drift upwards to touch my mouth.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Nightingale finally said, in the calm voice of his that signaled total shock.

I let my tongue swipe at my lower lip. “Technically speaking, we both did that.”

“Still, I--” Nightingale was almost at a loss for words. “I shouldn’t--” He visibly set his jaw, and said, “Please accept my apology, Peter. That shouldn’t have happened.”

Through the faint haze of shock and frustrated desire--desire for _Nightingale_ , my boss and my teacher, this day had hit a level of absurdity even I couldn’t believe possible--the rebuttal immediately leapt into my head, _But I wanted to do that._

Enthusiastically so, if my memory was right--but I could see the flush creeping into Nightingale’s pale cheeks--and for once, I held back, and kept my mouth shut, offering only a brief, “Okay.”

Nightingale gave me a doubtful look, but nodded in response. After a moment where we tried not to stare too obviously at each other, Nightingale said, “I should--we should get you to the hospital. Abdul will want to take a look at you.”

“Sure, of course,” I agreed, as if this was another normal day and I was just going to give Dr. Walid another MRI to add to his collection. 

We didn’t speak much on the way to the Jag, or indeed, for the brief ride to UCH. Nightingale drove, cautiously, and I could feel him carefully looking at me only when he thought my attention was elsewhere.

Which was easy, as I was preoccupied with both trying not to flashback to the moment when I’d had to disarm the demon trap, Williams in my blind spot--and also trying not to bite at my lower lip, trace the outlines of my mouth, the same mouth that Nightingale had kissed, with the pad of my thumb. 

*

The first sign of trouble, from my perspective, was when Dr. Walid suggested I spend the night at UCH for observation, even before I’d had my MRI.

I gave him as much of a skeptical look as I could manage, given that I was dressed in nothing but a paper-thin hospital gown. In my experience, it’s near-impossible to maintain much dignity under those circumstances, let alone when facing a no-nonsense Glaswegian doctor. Still, I gave it my best effort. 

“Just a thought,” Dr. Walid said, unabashed. “In case any side-effects emerge in the next twenty-four hours.”

“It’s safer for me in the Folly than anywhere else,” I pointed out. “Safer for everyone else, too.” It was unlikely the Faceless Man would come after me twice in one day, but if he did, the Folly’s protections would serve as a better guard than any hospital security--and we wouldn’t run the risk of staff or patients getting caught in the crossfire. 

Dr. Walid looked at me gravely. “How have you been doing lately, Peter?”

I pushed aside my aches and pains, the headache building at my temples and the ringing still in my ears, and I looked Dr. Walid straight in the face and did _not_ rub at the thin scars curving around my wrist and forearm--one of several presents from the Faceless Man, none that I could return. “I’m doing fine. Not skipping down a field of flowers, if that’s what you’re thinking, but I’m, you know. Maintaining.”

Dr. Walid didn’t back down. “Have you considered getting counseling? It hasn’t been an easy year for you.”

“No,” I said. 

“I think you should consider it,” Dr. Walid said, in the gentle yet implacable way he had--he always took a gentler tack with me, as compared to the way he forcibly expressed his opinion with Nightingale as to my presumed mental state. 

“Sure,” I said. “If I can find a therapist who can handle the revelation that magic exists, we have evil wizards at large, and can be guaranteed not to be working for said evil wizards, then sure. Maybe.”

Dr. Walid’s mouth firmed as he said, “That’s not as impossible as you make it sound. I have recommendations--”

Thank God, Nightingale walked into the room at the moment to cut the conversation short. “Sorry about that, I was on the phone with the Commissioner.” He sounded utterly nonchalant about this, and no wonder, as we’d been having several meetings with the Commissioner as of late. 

“Does he want to see us tomorrow?” I asked.

“Bright and early,” Nightingale confirmed, and then looked inquiringly at Dr. Walid. “Has the MRI already been done?”

Dr. Walid gave him a look that signaled he knew very well Nightingale was running interference and he didn’t appreciate it--I, on the other hand, did appreciate it, and gave Nightingale a grateful nod as I said, “No, we were just about to get started.”

“Excellent,” Nightingale said briskly; our gazes accidentally caught for a moment, and then Nightingale looked away, glancing down at my bare knees. 

_I’ve just kissed that man,_ I thought, and no matter how much I dwelled on it, no matter how clearly I remembered it, the fact was still astonishing. 

And I had plenty of time to dwell on it in the MRI, the machine clanging around my ears, unable to move--trapped in that close space, I could replay the image of of shrapnel flying at my face, or I could choose to focus on the memory of Nightingale kissing me. 

I chose the latter. I chose to focus on the way Nightingale’s mouth had moved against mine, how natural it had felt to kiss him back, how _good_ it felt, and how I hadn’t wanted it to stop. 

How I possibly wanted to kiss him again.

By the time I finally emerged from the MRI machine, I was a little breathless and having to talk myself down somewhat. “All clear?” I asked Dr. Walid. He nodded in confirmation, but he still didn’t look entirely satisfied.

God only knew what he and Nightingale had talked about while I was in there. 

I looked at Nightingale, who seemed calm enough, saying to me, “I’ll see you outside once you’re dressed.”

As he left, Dr. Walid approached me and I tensed up again, but he didn’t say anything at first. After a moment, though, he said, “Peter--please, just try and look after yourself, will you?”

I looked at him then, and the honest worry in his face made me ashamed of my earlier reaction. “I will,” I said, and then chanced a small smile. “Besides, I’m living in the most secure building in London right now.”

Dr. Walid rolled his eyes, but there was a rueful smile on his face. “The guards are unorthodox, but I’ll admit they’re effective.”

“And one of them can cook, besides,” I said, and Dr. Walid chuckled.

*

Nightingale and I didn’t speak much on the drive back home to the Folly. He kept his hands on the wheel, looking ahead at traffic just about the entire time. I’d taken paracetamol for my headache and bruises, the ringing in my ears would fade in time, and there was nothing left for me to really do but look out the window--or look at Nightingale. I spent that ride just watching him, exhaustion sinking into my bones the longer that I sat there in silence--I watched him and remembered what it had felt like to kiss him, wondering now if I had the nerve to mention it at all.

I didn’t, at least not then, and it ended up being Nightingale who said something first. We’d just reached the Folly, and he’d parked the Jag in its usual spot in the garage, but made no move to get out of the car. 

“About my behavior today,” he began, sounding painfully stiff, and the last thing I wanted to hear from him was yet another apology for something I didn’t regret at all. 

“Sir,” I said, “It’s fine, really.” He looked at me finally then, and gave me a skeptical look, eyebrow raised. 

His hand was resting at his side, and I thought, idly, about reaching out to touch him, just letting my fingers brush against his knuckles, and seeing where things went from there.

To distract myself as much as to reassure him, I said next, not thinking about how it sounded, “I mean, I’m not going to complain about the best thing to happen to me all day.”

Nightingale blinked at this, then his mouth quirked upwards. “That’s a rather backhanded compliment, given today’s events,” he replied, his voice dry, and I laughed from surprise as much as anything else. 

“Trust me, it’s really not,” I said, impulsively, and his eyes caught mine, and--

It was so strange, was the thing. To look at Nightingale and not see my boss, my teacher, but a man I’d kissed before, and wanted to kiss again, to know that at least for one mad moment, he’d wanted to kiss me--

I couldn’t wrap my head around it, not yet. 

Nightingale saw me watching him, of course, how could he not? He didn’t put a stop to it, though, just watched me back, a little wide-eyed, before clearing his throat and looking away. “We should get in, Molly’s expecting us.”

“Right,” I said, a little disappointed--but what had I expected, for him to lean over and kiss me again? 

_Maybe_ , a treacherous part of my brain whispered.

But that clearly wasn’t in the cards for today, so we got out of the car, and headed into the Folly, where Molly was waiting for us, Toby yipping at her heels, his lead in her hand. Before she could hand it to me, Nightingale took it from her, giving both of us a firm look. “Thank you, Molly, I’ll be walking Toby today.”

Neither of us argued with that.

"Be careful," I blurted out as Nightingale was about to leave. My face flushed hot as he turned to look at me, because we knew the Faceless Man wasn't after _him_ , not yet--but I'd said it anyway.

I worried anyway.

Nightingale didn't brush it off either; he just inclined his head and said, "Of course," and left, Toby trotting obediently at his heels.

As the door clicked shut behind them, Molly handed me a piece of paper. "What--" I started, but the paper had Beverley's name on it, written in Molly's copperplate script, and I realized she must have called to check in. My phone had been off since well before the demon trap had gone.

"Thanks," I said to Molly, who just tapped the paper with her thin finger before gliding off.

Beverley picked up on the first ring, a sure sign of how worried she'd been. "Peter, for fuck's sake, what _happened_?"

"Demon trap," I said, and Beverley hissed in exasperation.

"I know _that_ , you numpty, half the fucking city felt that thing go off, but what happened? Was it Faceless again?"

"Yeah," I confirmed, and Beverley cursed on the other end. "Didn't even find one of his lairs or anything. Just another trap for me, I'm afraid." I tried to sound as nonchalant about this as possible, but Beverley saw through it anyway. Even if we'd split up the year before, she still knew me too well to be taken in.

"Are you okay?" Beverley asked next. "Was anyone injured?"

"Yes, I'm fine, and no, no one else got hurt, the trap was disarmed without a hitch."

"Really?" Beverley asked, skeptical. "Because I wasn't kidding about half the city knowing about this--nearly all of us felt it when that nasty thing went off."

"It was one of his nastier ones, I'll admit," I said. "But hey--I'm not dead yet."

Beverley responded to my attempt at gallows humor as well as she ever did. "That's not funny, Peter."

"No, I suppose not," I admitted, rubbing at my temples. The paracetamol still hadn’t kicked in all the way yet. 

"It's getting worse," Beverley said.

"Yes," I agreed.

Beverley let out an unhappy sigh. "Peter, as one of my favorite ex-boyfriends, I should tell you that if you get yourself killed, I will personally have you brought back to life just so I can kill you myself."

Despite the threat, I grinned. "I'm your _only_ favorite ex--you're not on speaking terms with any of the others."

"Because they're wankers," Beverley retorted, but grew serious again. "Peter, I mean it, be careful."

"I'll be as careful as I can," I told her, and she just kissed her teeth, the sound faint but distinctive on the line.

"That is not reassuring, coming from you," she said, and really--I couldn't blame her.

*

Nightingale came back from the walk with Toby right as I was sitting down to dinner. I let out a small sigh of relief as he came in, and Nightingale looked at me and asked, "Peter?"

I realized I must have looked at him strangely. "Sorry. You should sit."

Nightingale watched me for a second longer, then he took his usual seat at the table. Neither one of us talked about the Faceless Man at dinner, or what had happened in the alleyway. Instead, Nightingale talked about his work before the war, some of the cases he'd handled in England. It was an obvious attempt at distracting me, and it worked, and I appreciated it.

But even as I listened, even as I peppered Nightingale with questions that he actually answered for once, there was a part of me that was still watching Nightingale, watching the gestures of his hands, the way his mouth moved when he spoke.

I watched him, and I looked at him and wondered if he was watching me the same way, if he’d ever looked at my hands, my face, my mouth and thought _yes_.

Not something I could ask him, obviously. Not something I even knew what to do with, not yet.

But it was still there, lingering in the back of my head all the same.

*

I expected that I would have dreams that night, and I did, though not the nightmares that drove me out of bed at all hours to either practice on the gun range, the punching bag, or delve into the mountains of paperwork that needs doing.

Instead, the dreams I had were about Nightingale.

I dreamed that Nightingale came into my bedroom that night, wearing the royal purple dressing gown I've had occasion to see every once in a while. I dreamed that I was naked beneath the sheets when he came in, and that Nightingale sat on the edge of the bed and _looked_ at me, and then we--well, it's easy to fill in the rest. God knows my brain did.

I dreamed that, and woke up in the morning with my cock aching in my boxers, my whole body humming with desire and frustration that it wasn't real, that it wasn't somehow true.

"Christ," I mumbled, staring blindly up at the ceiling for a moment before I hauled myself out of bed. There was a part of me--a bigger part than I wanted to admit to--that wanted nothing more than to lounge in bed, wrap a hand around my aching cock and just block everything else out--but I had the meeting with the Commissioner, and that waits for no wizard.

And, more to the point, I had to face Nightingale over breakfast first. Dreams were one thing, but wanking off about your boss another one entirely.

*

Even with that, there was an assumption in my head that once I saw Nightingale, the real Nightingale and not the fantasy in my head, it would all be normal again. My head would be put to rights, and we'd go on as usual. Or as usual as we could be, given the current state of affairs in which a masked psychopath was trying to kill me.

And then I went into the dining room where breakfast was being served, my back aching only a little as I walked in, and Nightingale was sitting there reading his morning paper, and I saw him--and there was the end of that particular delusion.

It's not that Nightingale looked particularly handsome that day, because he looked like his usual self--wearing one of his gorgeous well-tailored suits, his dark hair neatly parted, frowning abstractly at his paper--it was a sight I'd seen countless times over the last four years, it shouldn't have made me pause now, not for a second.

But I did. Not just because I'd dreamed the night before of pulling him into my bed, of us doing things that I certainly wasn’t flexible enough for in reality, not because I’d woken up from that dream with a hard cock and my entire body flushed from desire--but because yesterday he’d kissed me, and I’d kissed him back.

Nightingale looked up and caught sight of me, immediately folding his paper up and putting it to one side. “Peter,” he said. He clearly meant to make it sound as normal as possible, but his eyes were a little too wide for that to come off properly. 

“Morning, sir,” I said, and took my usual seat across from him, my back twinging as I sank into my seat. For a while I was preoccupied with serving myself and eating, and Nightingale was preoccupied in pretending he wasn’t watching me do it--but eventually one of us had to say something. 

It was just a pity that I started the conversation with, “So--about yesterday.”

From the tone of my voice, Nightingale had to know what I was leading up to, and he gave me an appropriately wary look as he asked, “Yes?”

Part of me couldn’t believe I was saying this out loud, actually bringing it up--but a larger part of me, the part that was in control, couldn’t imagine stopping, couldn’t imagine saying nothing at all--so I said, “About what happened in the alley…” I looked at Nightingale, and the words stuck in my throat for a moment before I finally managed to say, “Did you mean to do it?”

Nightingale blinked at me slowly. “I--Peter, I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

“Was it like,” My hand was waving by my head like I was trying to summon a small tornado, and I stopped, but went on to say, “Was it just, like, delayed shock? Or was it...more specific than that.”

There wasn’t a single part of that that made any rational sense and I knew it, but I also knew he understood what I was trying to ask. Judging from the sudden flush to his cheeks, Nightingale knew very well what I was asking him. 

He didn’t answer, not right away, and then he decisively said, “We shouldn’t discuss this right now.”

“Okay,” I said, pushing back my disappointment. 

“We--you deserve an answer,” Nightingale continued, his face somehow even more flushed, “But if I’m going to give you that answer, I--” He stopped and reached for his cup of coffee. “I will need far more alcohol at hand for that conversation, and we’re meeting the Commissioner today. So we should wait.”

Which, if you thought about it, was an answer all on its own. 

My eyes were surely wider than the saucer Nightingale was resting his cup on, but somehow I got out, “Okay. We’ll wait, then.”

“Good,” Nightingale said, a touch grimly. 

It was that grim note in his voice that spurred me on to say, amazed at my own daring in admitting it, “Was a good kiss, though.”

Nightingale’s gaze snapped back to my face, and he stared at me, incredulous. I looked back at him, my face hot, and finally he said, sounding a little bit strangled, “Oh?”

“Yes,” I said, wishing I could hide my own face in a coffee cup. “I mean, obviously just my opinion, but I thought it was good.”

Nightingale stared at me, and his voice was definitely strangled as he said, “If you’ve--if you’ve finished, we should get going. Traffic and all that.”

“Sure,” I said, and took one last gulp of orange juice before I got to my feet. 

I could feel Nightingale’s gaze burning a hole between my shoulders as we walked to the garage, but that was all right. I was getting used to that now. 

*

When we finally got back to the Folly from the Commissioner’s office, neither Nightingale or I were really speaking, and Abigail was waiting for us inside the Folly. 

“Shouldn’t you be at school?” I asked at the sight of Abigail sitting in the atrium, one of my Discworld novels in her lap. “And who got you that book?”

“It’s Saturday, and Molly gave it to me,” Abigail said, clambering up to her feet. It had been four years since Abigail had seen her first ghost, and I still couldn’t get used to this new reality where she was now up to my shoulder in terms of height. 

“Hello, Abigail,” Nightingale said politely. “Glad to see that Molly’s been looking after you,” he added, nodding at the plate of biscuits and glass of juice on the small table by Abigail’s chair. “If you’ll excuse me.”

It figured that Nightingale would take Abigail’s appearance as an excuse to delay our talk. 

I turned back to Abigail to find her looking at me worriedly. “What happened yesterday?” she asked without preamble, and I sighed. 

“What makes you think something happened?”

“Fleet stopped by my school the other day to ‘check in’,” Abigail said, making excellent use of air quotes. “She and Beverley only ever do that when something’s going on with you, and usually it’s about the Faceless Man, so...is something going on?”

The fact that two of the river goddesses of London were making a regular habit of checking on my cousin was probably a measure of how ridiculously dangerous my life had become.

I swallowed. “Yeah, there was an incident, but it’s fine. It’s being handled.” I was determined to leave it there. Abigail didn’t need to hear about the Faceless Man leaving magically-altered body parts on the street just to lure me into a trap, and she definitely didn’t need to hear about demon traps loaded with shrapnel and God only knew what else.

“Just like the last time?” Abigail pressed. “Or the time before that?”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” I told her, with a smile that she didn’t return. 

Well, it was worth a shot. I dropped the smile--it felt stiff on my face, anyway--and sat down in the chair next to hers. “Okay, truthfully--yeah, there was an incident. No, it wasn’t good--but I made it out in one piece, and I’m _fine_ , Abigail, I really am.”

Abigail was frowning, but she sat down in her chair, which was a start at least. Or at least I thought so, until she asked me in a low voice, “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

I paused before answering that, torn between giving her a honest answer and protecting her as much as I was able. “It’s not going great, no--” Abigail was watching me, wide-eyed and miserable, and I went on forcefully, “But I’m okay. I’m not in hospital, I’m not injured and no one got hurt. So yeah, it’s not great, but it’s better than the last time.”

Right on cue, Abigail’s gaze dropped to my left arm, even though my sleeves weren’t rolled up, but she didn’t comment further, other than to mutter, “Those are really low standards, Peter.”

“You learn to take what you can get, some days,” I said. 

Abigail pursed her lips, but didn’t argue, at least not directly. “Have you heard from Lesley?” she asked instead. “Maybe if you went to her for help--”

I shook my head, ignoring the pang in my chest at the mention of Lesley. That was an old ache by now, and I’d accepted that it would never go away. “Lesley isn’t even in Europe anymore, from what we’ve heard. She broke with him and took off, and more power to her for doing it, but Lesley’s made her choice, and she’s not coming back.”

It was a nice fantasy, to imagine that Lesley would show up one day out of the blue, repentant, with the magic key to defeating the Faceless Man--except that wasn’t how it worked. I knew she wasn’t working with the Faceless Man any longer--she’d taken off for destinations unknown soon after I’d lopped off his arm--and I knew, therefore, that she wasn’t actively working to kill me. That was the best I could hope for, under the circumstances.

Abigail was right, my standards were shockingly low these days.

Another day, I might have tried to put a more positive spin on it. But I was a day from having shrapnel fly at my face, and I’d just got back from a meeting where the commissioner discussed having me put away in witness protection under twenty-four hour guard, and the only reason we hadn’t done that was because Nightingale had pointed out, yet again, that the safest place for me in London was the Folly. Anything else, the Faceless Man would tear through in seconds if he wanted to. 

And it was clear by now that he wanted nothing more than to see me dead.

I just didn’t have much of a positive spin left to give. But when I looked at Abigail, watching me and doing such a piss-poor job of hiding her worry, I knew I could at least give her an out. 

“Listen,” I said, gently, “--if this has got you worried, or rethinking your plans about joining the Folly--”

Abigail sat up straighter at that, watching me through narrowed eyes, and I knew this offer wouldn’t go down well, but I had to make it anyway. 

“If you think this isn’t for you anymore, you can just say so. It’s okay, I won’t--”

“Have you hit your head or something?” Abigail demanded, her voice sharp. “Fleet didn’t say anything about you getting a concussion, Peter, and I know you’re not stupid enough to think I’m looking to get out of this.”

She was scowling at me so fiercely that I had to bite back a smile. “I don’t think--”

“Because you promised me,” Abigail said, jutting out her chin in a way that was reminiscent of my mother. “You _swore_ that if I studied Latin, that you’d teach me magic. I’m not letting you wriggle out of it now just because this stupid Faceless Man is trying to wreck things. It’s not happening.”

“Okay,” I said, gently. “Okay, I hear you.”

“Good,” Abigail said. “And don’t forget it either.”

*

Abigail ended up staying the afternoon, and stayed for dinner too. I was glad, because it meant a peaceful afternoon where I could ease her worries--and mine, come to think of it--and also frustrated, because it meant I didn’t have a chance to follow up with Nightingale about the kiss. 

Nightingale realized that as well as I did, and he made a point of engaging Abigail in conversation as soon as we sat down to the table--asking her about her studies, how well her Latin was coming along. I was left with nothing to do but eat my dinner and give Nightingale pointed looks that he serenely ignored. 

It would’ve ended after dinner, except that my phone buzzed in my pocket, and when I pulled it out, there was a text from Sahra. _Drinks tonight? Jaget and I are paying. :)_

I blinked, and then started tapping out a reply. _Isn’t paying for alcohol considered haram, Guleed?_

“Peter?” Nightingale asked. 

“Sorry, just a message from Sahra. Not about the case, she just wanted to see if I was free for drinks tonight,” I said distractedly. Sahra’s reply came immediately.

_Just let me worried about what’s allowed, Grant. You in?_

“You should go,” Nightingale said, and when I gave him an unimpressed look, he gave me a rueful smile. “They’re wanting to check in on you after yesterday, you can’t fault them for that.”

“Is it safe?” Abigail blurted out, and when we turned to look at her, she flushed but said, “Just--going out this soon after the Faceless Man came after you?”

I’d honestly been thinking the same thing, but Abigail asking meant I had to reassure her, and somehow reassure myself. “He’s never made an attempt in that short a time frame,” I said to her. “Besides, I beat him yesterday, didn’t I?”

Abigail didn’t look entirely convinced by this, and I said, more seriously, my nerves settling as I spoke, “If I stay in here just because I’m afraid, then he starts to win.”

Abigail pursed her lips at this, but didn’t argue, only saying, “If you let him snatch you up now, that’ll just be embarrassing.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I’ve got a reputation to uphold.” Nightingale and Abigail both gave me looks suggesting they weren’t too sure about _that_ , and I gave them my most charming smile. Abigail just rolled her eyes at this, but I was sure I saw Nightingale smile down at his plate for just a second.

“So, I’m going then.” I meant to sound confident and relaxed, but even I could hear the doubt creeping into my voice. Nightingale gave me a look I didn’t want to read, and said thoughtfully, “Although it would be best if we made some arrangements for your transportation.”

“Arrangements?” I parroted, confused, and when Nightingale gave me a look, I got it. “Oh. Frank wouldn’t mind?”

“I’ll be sure to ask but I hardly think so,” Nightingale said. “I’ll drop off Abigail at her home and Frank can see you to the pub.”

“That works,” I said, and added casually, “And you’ll be up still when I get back?”

If he was at all disappointed, Nightingale was too composed to show it, saying easily, “Of course.”

“Good,” I said, and Nightingale just looked back at me before turning back to his plate.

*

The Burlington Arms was a pub frequented by officers from Belgravia nick--I’d been there on occasion, but usually only in the company of Sahra and Jaget. Frank pulled the van into a nearby alley and jerked his head at the direction of the pub. “Off you go then.”

“Thanks,” I said, but hesitated before I climbed out of the passenger side. “You’ll be all right, then?”

Frank grinned and pulled a beaten-up copy of Guns, Germs and Steel out of the glove compartment. “I’m all set, believe me.” He cocked an eyebrow at me and said, “Try not to get poisoned again, eh?”

“I’ll do my best,” I told him, getting out of the van. 

When I walked in, Sahra and Jaget had already arrived and managed to commandeer a booth, and to my surprise, I saw that PC Emilia Williams was with them, nursing a pint and, as far as I could see, blithely ignoring Sahra’s dubious looks. 

She was the first to spot me too, waving me over with a friendly smile. “Hello, Grant.”

“Hello,” I said, and although I was too polite to openly ask what she was doing there, Williams offered cheerfully, “Heard you were coming in tonight, thought I would stop by and say hello.”

“Hello again, then,” I said, ridiculously, sliding into the empty space next to Jaget. “Glad to see you up and about.” Jaget had already ordered me a pint, and slid it over to me. I nodded in thanks and pretended to take a pull from it, but really what I was doing was using a _forma_ to test for poison. Fool me twice and all that. 

"Me? Oh, I'm fine," Williams said, breezily. "Never get knocked off my feet for long."

"Clearly," Sahra said, sipping at her drink--lime and soda, her usual.

I looked at the two of them, Sahra's clear irritation and Williams' false cheerfulness, and I asked, "Emilia--what are you doing here?"

Her cheerful expression finally slipped, and Williams chewed at her lip a minute before admitting, "I just--had some more questions."

Sahra still didn't look happy, and Jaget didn't look much pleased either, and I wasn't surprised by their reactions--since the Faceless Man had started his campaign, they'd both been tasked with explaining things to curious officers that didn't feel comfortable asking me directly. 

Or as Sahra might've put it, they were stuck dealing with the gawkers.

“That's all right,” I said. I wasn't entirely surprised, because even if most officers in the Met generally tried to give the Folly--and thus, me--a wide berth, there would always be those whose curiosity overran their fear.

And besides, Williams had the chance to run yesterday, and she hadn't taken it. She'd come back to stand at my side once she cleared the building, she hadn't run when the trap was disarmed. I could give her some answers now, for that.

“What did you want to know?” I asked patiently, and Williams looked surprised for a moment before she squared her shoulders. 

“You said you cut the Faceless Man’s arm off.” At my cautious nod, she blurted out. “But how? And why?”

“I did it with a spell,” I said, and Williams scoffed.

“Obviously,” she said. “But how did you do it?”

That gave me pause, and I looked at her for a moment. She seemed to go a bit pinker under my gaze, though in this lighting it was harder to tell. “Most people don't want to hear the details of how I do what I do.”

She was definitely blushing at that. “I just--I'd like to know more. If you'll tell me.”

I looked at her for a long moment, ignoring how tense Jaget was next to me, how deep Sahra’s frown was at this point. It would have been easy to put her off, God knew Sahra and Jaget would’ve backed me--and it would quiet the paranoid voice in the back of my head, whispering about a possible spy for the Faceless Man.

Except that there was no evidence whatsoever that Williams was a spy for Faceless, and that voice in my head wasn’t something I wanted to listen to, not to the point where it overrode my better judgement. Frank Caffrey was staking out the bar in the van, I was in a pub full of coppers, Sahra and Jaget were right there--I was as safe as I could possibly be outside of the Folly’s walls, and I couldn’t treat everyone that wanted to know more about the Folly like they were an enemy. 

So I made myself relax, and made the choice to answer her question. “Remember what I did to keep the shrapnel from hitting us? That shield I used?”

“Not likely to forget anytime soon,” Williams said, watching me eagerly, and Jaget and Sahra were listening closely at this point too. I wouldn’t lie, a part of myself liked it, getting the chance to talk to someone about magic, having someone listen so attentively while I explained _how_ it actually worked. Nearly everyone I knew was interested in what would happen, not how it happened.

“That shield, it's not infinite, all right? It's got an edge to it, a very sharp edge, sharper than a blade.” All those experiments in the Folly, all those hours carefully testing how far I could throw it, seeing what it could cut through--

“So,” I said, pushing myself forward, warming up to the topic a little, “I realized that if you turned it on its side, and propelled it forward--”

“You've got an invisible knife,” Williams said slowly, awed. “Jesus. And you used this on him?”

Her tone wasn’t accusatory, but I sat back in my seat anyway. “He was about to kill someone, so yes.” I took a long pull of my pint, not looking at her as I added, “This is all in my report in HOLMES, by the way.”

“I don't have the clearance to read that,” Williams said.

Which implied that she'd tried to read it, and had no success. I’d assumed she'd tried to look me up, but the confirmation was still something of a jolt.

“So you cut his arm off, and he still got away?” Williams pressed.

“He had backup,” I said, thinking back with a shudder to the chimeras launching themselves at me while the Faceless Man howled in pain, their claws tearing at my sleeve as I tried to fight them off.

I pulled myself back to the present, and looked Williams squarely in the face as I said, “You don't have the clearance to hear everything, and I wouldn't tell you even if you did, but it was a fucking disaster, and in the chaos he managed to get away.”

“Minus his arm,” Williams said, undaunted. “And with a hell of a grudge against you.”

“You have no idea,” I said, unable to keep all the grimness out of my voice.

“You know, I think I need another drink,” Sahra said abruptly; she’d finished her lime and soda when I wasn't looking. She gave Williams a very pointed look, one eyebrow raised just so, and Williams jumped a little in her seat and said quickly, her face flushing all over, “Oh, um--I could get that for you, if you like? My treat.”

Sahra gave Williams a wide smile that was not in the least friendly. “Excellent, thanks so much.”

William’s face was definitely red now, but she slipped out of the booth with an awkward nod to the rest of us.

Once she was safely out of earshot, Jaget said quietly, “Sorry about that. We didn’t mean to bring you here for an interrogation.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay,” I said to him. “Not like I’m not used to answering questions about Faceless at this point.”

“He’s gone stupid though,” Sahra muttered to herself, frowning, and when we looked over at her, she made a face before clarifying, “I mean the Faceless Man, not Peter.”

Jaget wrinkled his nose. “He’s definitely evil, but stupid? He wouldn’t have escaped this long if he were an idiot.”

Sahra frowned, and said to Jaget, “No, but the way he’s going about this is idiotic--”

“She’s right,” I said, shrugging with one shoulder. “If you wanted me dead, you wouldn’t resort to demon traps and poison--”

“Poison?” Sahra and Jaget echoed in unison, shocked, and I grimaced at the slip.

“Long story, don't ask,” I said quickly, and hurried on before they pressed me further. “The point is that if he wanted me dead, he wouldn't have to act like a villain from a James Bond film. All he would need to do is to kidnap my mum, or my cousin, or anyone else I cared about--and that’d be it. But he hasn't.”

“Because he thinks that would be...what, cheating?” Jaget asked, doubtfully. “Is there some kind of...wizard code of conduct for this thing?”

“No, he doesn't have scruples. What he's got is too much pride. He's got to prove that he's better than me now, prove that he can beat me with his magic, and it's turning him stupid. All this fuss, creating a murder case just to lure me into a trap--it's wasteful.”

Jaget considered that, a disturbed look on his face, and finally picked up his pint. “I can't tell if that's terrifying or encouraging, in an awful kind of way.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” I said, grimly. The look on their faces were verging too close to pity, so I picked up my own pint and glanced over at Williams, barely visible in the general crush around the bar.

“Williams volunteered to work with me on this case, you know,” I said, and Jaget sat up straighter in his seat which Sahra grimaced. Her recent promotion meant she was considered too senior to act as the go-between for Belgravia and the Folly, which left room for a new face to come in, as needed--and it just so happened that for this case, it was Williams.

Jaget was looking over at Williams now, a furrow between his eyebrows as he asked, “Jesus, you don't think she's--”

“A spy for Faceless? Probably not,” I said. Between Seawoll and the DPS, anyone who collaborated on a case with the Folly was being vetted backwards and forwards. “No, but she is curious about me, isn't she?”

“Everyone's curious about you,” Sahra said. There was a hard note in her voice now, and her jaw was set--I suddenly felt a faint stirring of pity for Williams, if this was what she’d faced before I came into the pub.

“She's not that bad,” I said.

“She's gawking,” Jaget snapped out. “Just like everyone else, coming around to pump us for details on the Met’s walking tragedy--” Jaget shut his mouth so quickly the snap was almost audible, but it has still been said, and none of us could pretend otherwise.

I met his horrified, apologetic gaze evenly, and tapped my left forearm. “People are still stuck on this, I take it.”

Jaget’s eyes darted to my arm, to the scars we both knew were underneath my sleeve, and then he blurted out, “Yeah, they can't get over it. Fucking hell, Peter, _I_ can't get over it, and I can't imagine how you can either.”

“Didn’t say I was over it,” I replied, before I could think better of it; I looked away from Jaget, from and finished my pint.

“Peter--” Sahra started, her voice hushed, but I didn’t want to hear it.

“I’m going to get some fresh air,” I said quickly, cutting her off. “Be back in a minute.”

It was closer to ten minutes before anyone came looking for me, and it was Williams who came, not Sahra or Jaget. I looked up from my phone, where I was playing Candy Crush in full view of Frank Caffrey’s van. “They sent you?”

Williams gave an uncomfortable shrug. “Told them I wanted to apologize.”

My eyebrows creeped up towards my hairline. “Do you?”

“Yes,” Williams said, earnestly. “If I’ve made you uncomfortable tonight--”

“It’s fine,” I told her, because of all the things I’d have to tolerate tonight, an earnest apology and discussion about my feelings would be the thing to push me over the edge. “You’re curious. Most people are.”

Williams nodded, ducking her head, but it was obvious from the way she was chewing on her lower lip that she had more to say. More questions to ask. 

I didn’t mind it as much as I should have, because the truth was that I’d become nearly as curious about her. About why she was here, what she was after--and unlike Williams, I was no longer a lowly PC, I had the sort of clearance that meant I could satisfy my curiosity without needing to ask Williams questions upfront. At least, not until I was good and ready to do so. 

Williams, unaware of what I was thinking, nodded her head back in the direction of the front door. “So--if I promise to keep my big mouth shut, will you come back in? Your friends are pretty worried about you.”

“Yeah,” I said, making sure to give her the right sort of smile--rueful but relaxed, the smile of a man who was determined to let his worries go. “Sounds manageable enough.”

*

All things considered, I made it back home to the Folly at a reasonable hour, sober and clear-eyed. As I walked through the Folly, my stomach started fluttering from nerves as I spotted the light coming from the open door to the smaller study Nightingale favored in the evenings.

Nightingale was there, sitting in an armchair with newspaper scattered across the tiny table next to him. He carefully folded the pages in his hand as I came in through the door, and I caught a glimpse of a half-full glass of whiskey on the table. 

I leaned against the wall in a manner I was _fairly_ confident came off as cool and nonchalant, and I asked, “Have you been reading the _Mirror_?”

Nightingale looked a little sheepish, as well he should, after years of pointedly ignoring my subscription to the left-wing redtop. “I was curious.”

I grinned. “Any thoughts?”

“Not bad,” Nightingale admitted, glancing down at the paper. “It’s...different, but not bad.” He looked up again, his face all rueful amusement--and right then, I wanted him, very badly. I wanted _him,_ the stubborn, occasionally fussy, brilliant man in front of me, exactly as he was right then.

“It’s later,” I said next, with a calmness I wouldn’t have believed possible before today. “And you have alcohol now.”

“So I do,” Nightingale said after a moment, looking back down at his glass, as if he were contemplating knocking back the rest of it in one go. He wouldn’t, of course.

Instead of doing that, he squared his shoulders and said to me, his voice measured and distant, “Peter, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what a foolish idea this is.” 

Nettled by his tone, I replied before I could think twice. “Didn't stop you from kissing me.” Nightingale opened his mouth at that, no doubt to apologize _again_ , and I said, “And it didn't stop me from kissing you back, either.”

Nightingale swallowed. “No. It didn't stop us.”

“So,” I said, stepping forward slowly, like I was approaching a skittish animal--not that I did that often, but I knew the basic theory of it. “If we did it before, and if we wanted to do it again--”

Nightingale stared at me, and I stopped where I was, raising my eyebrows in response to the look on his face. 

“If we wanted to do it again?” Nightingale repeated, very carefully, as if he thought he'd heard me wrong and wanted to clarify. 

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him if he really believed I'd be putting myself through this if I wasn't looking for a repeat, but I refrained. Barely. “Well,” I said as I stood before him, “I still want to do it again, even if it is a stupid idea. I won't speak for you, though, so if you've changed your mind since yesterday--”

This was the out Nightingale could take, if he wanted to, if he wanted to talk about boundaries, about the proper roles we should stick to or whatever...but he didn’t take it, he just stared at me and repeated once more, disbelieving, “If I’ve changed _my_ mind?”

I made a show of shrugging my shoulders, trying not to show how much rode on his answer--or the hope I felt, at the clear outrage in his voice. “You might've been in shock yesterday or something. Just making sure you still wanted to--”

That was about as much as Nightingale could take as it turned out, as he got up to his feet in one swift motion, and for the second time in as many days, Nightingale was kissing me. Thoroughly.

I was better braced for it this time, ready for it this time, our mouths fitting together as if we’d been doing this for months already, his mouth hot and sure against mine, and it was _fantastic_.

It ended too soon, as Nightingale pulled back first, but not to run off or apologize, thank Christ, just to rest his forehead against mine, and say, unsteadily, “To be clear, Peter--my objections aren’t out of any _flightyness_ on my part.”

I was grinning like a fool at this, couldn’t help it. To hear Nightingale say that, about me--I’d like anyone to think they could hear that and not smile, honestly. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Nightingale said. “It’s...well, it’s quite the opposite, for me.”

My breath caught in my lungs for a moment, hearing that admission. At last I asked him, quietly, my fingers rubbing the fine material of his sweater as I did, “How long...how long have you wanted--”

“Too long,” Nightingale said, cutting me off, his voice rougher now, almost harsh except for the way he was watching me, his gaze lingering on my mouth, how he was standing so close, like he wanted to lean in and touch me again, kiss me again--and was only just barely restraining himself. “Longer than I let myself--” Nightingale cut himself off, but I didn’t need to hear anything else.

“Well,” I said, “I’m right here.” And before Nightingale could say anything else, I was the one that leaned in, and kissed him on the mouth, with intent--the way you kissed someone when you wanted to make it clear what you were putting on the table, so to speak. 

It was good, of course it felt good--kissing Nightingale like that, the two of us pressed together, Nightingale’s arm slipping around my waist as he dragged me in even closer, no more hesitation from him now, just his mouth moving against mine, his hands at the small of my back, curling around my hip. 

I was giving as good as I got, to be clear, my hands settling again in Nightingale’s thick hair, not caring anymore about rocking forward against Nightingale, feeling him hard against my hip, pressing my own erection against Nightingale’s thigh, because boundaries were a thing of the past, never to be found again.

I became dimly aware of the noises I was making, low in my throat--soft and desperate noises, and I started wondering, almost feverishly, how far we could take this, if there was a flat surface I could coax Nightingale onto, hell, if I could somehow pull him down to the damned _floor_ if nothing else--

And then nothing, Nightingale had pulled back, stepped away, and I was left dazed and cold, blinking at him. “What--”

Nightingale was breathing hard, his face flushed. “Damn it,” he muttered. “We can’t do this.”

It took a moment before I found my voice. “Except that we have, and we just did.”

Nightingale held up his hand. “I don’t mean it like that,” he said quickly, his face softening in response to whatever facial expression I had just then. “I want this. Obviously,” he added, gesturing at his rumpled hair, his wet mouth, the still-visible erection in his trousers, the thousand different signs of what we’d done, of how I affected him. “And I believe that you want this right now, yes--but that doesn’t change the fact that this is _appalling_ timing.”

“There’s never going to be good timing,” I argued. A part of me marveled at myself for pushing this, pushing for more--but the rest of me remembered Nightingale’s mouth, remembered his body against mine, and couldn’t imagine not pushing for more. “Have you seen what our lives are like?”

Nightingale gave me a long look. “There can be better timing,” he said finally. “I can give you that much, at least. Give you time to think this over, to be sure of yourself.”

I bit back my first, hasty answer to that. “Just because the Faceless Man's after me doesn't mean I've lost the ability to think," I said at last, more mildly than I felt.

"Your ability to think, Peter, is never in question," Nightingale said, giving me a faint smile. “Just--take some time. Please.” He hesitated, then stepped forward to give me a soft, fleeting kiss. “You don’t need to worry about my position changing, if that’s a concern.”

I kissed him back, and there was nothing soft in it. But the moment had passed, and we both knew it. I could read Nightingale clear as anything, and I knew his mind was made up--he had decided I needed space and time, and by God, that’s what he’d give me.

But that was the problem, after all--just like I could read Nightingale by now, he knew me just as well, inside and out. And if he knew me that well, I had to allow for the possibility he was right. 

*

It wasn’t a nightmare I had that night. What my subconscious delivered instead was a memory, which was far worse. 

I’d gone back five months ago, to the moment where I was standing in the basement level of the big John Lewis on Oxford Street, holding a utility knife to the back of my wrist, my forearm, staring blindly down as my hand pressed the knife’s edge down onto my bare skin, cutting shallow grooves as the blood welled up and began to flow.

It hadn’t hurt, that was the awful thing. My mind had been in a thick fog, my body moving on its own to take me to the store, where I had asked to be shown to the kitchen area, where I’d picked up the first knife available, slammed my hand down on the nearest flat surface and tried to saw my own fucking hand off. 

It had been the Faceless Man, obviously. Payback for me cutting his arm off the month prior, and for a man capable of glamoring someone into committing suicide, getting me to cut my own hand off should’ve been a relative walk in the park. 

It hadn’t worked, not in real life. In real life, the customers started screaming, security was called in--and I had stopped, well before I could do any serious damage to myself.

But in the dream, I didn’t know that. In the dream, I was trapped in that one awful moment, watching my own hand mutilate my flesh, watching as I made those shallow cuts, one after another, as if I was working up the nerve, or wearing down whatever remaining defenses I had left, seeing the blood pool beneath my hand--and still I didn’t stop cutting. 

In the dream, it began to hurt, and I started to scream. 

That’s what woke me up, eventually, the screaming--I woke up to the sight of my bedroom ceiling, a scream still rattling in my throat, my hands, both my hands, clutching at the sheets. 

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” I chanted softly under my breath, as I shook and tried, futilely, to get ahold of myself. The Folly, delightful old mansion that it was, was big enough to have each senior officer get their own floor, and thick carpet that could muffle a lot--including my screams, as it turned out. No one was going to come running to my door, demanding to know if everything was all right, which meant it was up to me to get myself the fuck together already.

If only I could remember how to do it. 

Finally I managed to drag myself out of bed, my legs still unsteady beneath me. I dragged a t-shirt on, rubbing fretfully at the scars on my left wrist, opening the door and moving as quietly as I could not to alert Molly, or Nightingale sleeping peacefully a floor down from me. 

I headed off to hit the punching bag, my bare feet moving soundlessly on the thick carpet as I walked. 

Jesus Christ, what a fucking nightmare that day had been. 

I’d stopped cutting myself, in time. I had let the knife fall from my hand, where I’d promptly been pinned to the floor by two very alarmed security guards, who kicked the knife away and kept me facedown on the floor until the police and ambulance arrived on the scene, where I’d quickly been whisked off to the nearest hospital with a mental health ward. 

I hadn’t put up much of a fight to any of it, aside from giving them my name, and Nightingale’s name and number. 

By the time Nightingale found me, I’d been treated for my injured wrist, officially detained under the Mental Health Act, and given enough sedatives to fell a horse.

Not that I wanted to think about any of that right now. Or ever. Right now, I wanted to beat a punching bag until I could force my brain to stop _thinking_ , to stop reliving that awful, terrifying day.

So I taped up my hands the best I could, got the boxing gloves on, and got to work. 

By the time I could feel Molly’s presence at my back, I’d been at it long enough that my shirt was sticking to my back and my skin was slick with sweat, my arms aching from exertion. I glanced behind me just once, but that was enough--Molly was watching me, impassively, and I knew she wasn’t going to move. Not until I went with her. 

“All right,” I muttered, exhausted. “Let me get these off first--” But to my surprise, Molly stepped noiselessly forward, and carefully removed my gloves for me, one after the other. She peeled the tape off my hands as well, as gently as she could, making a disapproving face as she saw my split knuckles. 

“It’s not that bad,” I tried, but the glare I got at that had me shutting my mouth in a hurry. 

Molly looked me over a moment longer, as if to be sure that her message had sunk in, and then turned and walked out the door, confident that I’d follow. She wasn’t wrong, of course.

I didn’t quite understand where she was leading me though, not until we reached the general bathroom on my floor, and I realized that Molly had already drawn me a hot bath. “Oh,” I said, blankly, and Molly gave me another of her pointed looks. 

She slipped out to give me privacy, and I slowly stripped my clothes off, sinking into the hot water with a long groan. I decided to close my eyes for a minute--just a minute--and woke later to a faint knock at the door, the water having cooled around me while I dozed. 

Towel wrapped tightly around my waist, I poked my head out into the hallway to see Molly waiting for me. “Playing chaperone tonight, are we?” I asked, and I could have sworn she rolled her eyes at me in response, just the way Abigail did when I said something she considered ridiculous. 

Those two really were spending too much time together. 

Molly led the way to my bedroom, as if she really did think I’d get lost on my own--or go back to the punching bag again. It wasn’t until I was alone in my room and Molly had glided off that I realized why--while I’d been soaking in the tub, Molly had been sure to bring up a tray of tea and biscuits, which she’d carefully placed on the bed. 

My throat was oddly tight as I sipped at the tea, which of course, was made exactly how I liked it.

I did end up going back to bed that night, my hands still stinging from the sparring practice, but my stomach was full of tea and biscuits, and when I did finally sleep, I didn’t dream again.

And in the morning, when I woke up, it was with the strangest feeling of calm washing over me, like the worst had already happened, and all that was left was assessing the damage and starting the repairs. 

Which, frankly, was a stupid thing to think--if there was anything I’d learned over the past few years, it was that the worst things would happen just when I was hoping for a return to normality--and yet, I found myself humming as I got dressed for breakfast. It took me a second to realize what I was humming, but when I did, I dropped my socks back into the drawer from the surprise. 

Scales. I was humming _scales_ \--the same scales my dad taught me as a kid when he’d been half-heartedly trying to teach me piano and I’d been half-heartedly trying to learn. Of all the ridiculous things, straight out of _The Sound of Music…_

I’d been humming scales that day in the John Lewis store as well, I remembered suddenly, slowly sitting down on my bed. I’d had the knife in my hand, my blood smeared along the edge of the blade...and over the screaming customers, I’d been humming scales, up and down and up, over and over again. I’d kept humming until that memory of sitting with my dad at the keyboard came back into my head, drowning out the destructive commands that were rattling around in my magic-addled brain.

That’s how I’d beaten the Faceless Man that day--with simple scales. 

I sat at the edge of my bed for a moment longer, the memory washing over me--and then I got to my feet. Right. Time to get some overdue research started, finally.

*

All things considered, it didn’t take me very long at all to convince Beverley to set up a meeting between me and Tyburn. I could’ve gone straight to the source, so to speak, but I thought Beverley would be a good intermediary--plus she’d have never forgiven me for leaving her out of it. 

It took longer to convince Nightingale of the wisdom of my plan, but he eventually came around. “I’ll need to speak to Seawoll,” he said, a touch grimly. “See exactly what his definition of a thorough background check is.”

“We asked him to make sure no one was connected to Faceless,” I pointed out. “He succeeded at that.”

Nightingale’s mouth still had a stubborn set to it, and I hesitated only briefly before leaning in. To my relief, Nightingale titled his face up for the kiss, and I shivered faintly as our lips touched. The kiss was brief, almost chaste, but the deliberate nature of it still shook me.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful,” I promised as I pulled back. Nightingale slowly opened his eyes as I stood back, and his gaze was warm. 

“Of course you will.”

*

Beverley had offered to pick me up, and Nightingale had offered to have Frank come over with his van again, but I’d elected to take the Asbo up to Mayfair. My heart was beating faster than normal as I sat behind the wheel, but I was mostly successful in convincing myself it was thanks to the London traffic. And no, I didn’t hum scales to myself--but I did have the song from the Sound of Music burst into my head while I was stuck at a red light, and nearly burst out laughing to myself. 

I had a with a bottle of white wine tucked beneath my arm as I knocked on Tyburn’s front door-- nothing I’d picked out myself, but something from the Folly’s wine cellar. 

Beverley answered the door, her eyes lighting up as I showed her the wine. “You’re doing this properly now, aren’t you,” she said with a smile. 

“It’s not worth doing if it’s not done properly,” I said. “Particularly when your sister’s involved.”

Beverley took the wine bottle from my hand and stepped aside to let me in. “Don’t worry, she’s promised to behave,” she told me as I walked in. She led me out to the kitchen, where Tyburn sat at the table in the middle of that gorgeous French oak and green tile. 

“Hello, Peter,” Tyburn said, polite. 

I dipped my head in a hello. “Tyburn. Thanks for agreeing to this meeting.”

Beverley handed her sister the wine bottle; Tyburn looked the label over, her eyebrows shooting up as she read it. “Not bad,” she said, setting it to one side. “What can I do for you today, Peter?”

I let myself smile at her. “You could say hello to your husband’s cousin for me,” I said. “Emilia’s been very helpful with our investigation of late.”

Tyburn didn’t even blink at this, but behind her, Beverley was smiling a little bit, even as she shook her head at me. 

“Glad to hear it,” Tyburn said blandly. “Emilia has a lot of promise, or so I hear.” Her face was completely blank, not even the hint of a smirk to be found. I found it rather impressive, honestly. 

“Why did you send her our way?” I asked. 

Tyburn still wouldn’t blink. “What makes you think I did?” I let my silence answer for me, and at last I got a small crack in her mask, as Tyburn exhaled and said, “I never sent Emilia anywhere. Her branch of the family isn’t that close to Mark and me. But after she joined the Met and started hearing about your glorious escapades--” the sarcasm at that was _withering_ , “--she made a few connections, stopped by the house with questions for me.” Tyburn gave a faint shrug. “I gave her some answers.”

“See, I could almost buy that,” I said, “--except that I’m supposed to believe it’s a coincidence that your husband’s cousin, who has an A level in Latin, somehow miraculously got assigned to Belgravia nick, the same department that the Folly works with most often?”

Beverley wasn’t smiling anymore, and Tyburn was giving me a hard look. She got to her feet abruptly , grabbing the wine bottle as she tossed at me over her shoulder, “Perhaps I got tired of watching you and your governor run about like headless chickens.”

I kept my own face impassive, even as I admitted, “Speaking as one of the headless chickens, I’m getting rather tired of it myself.” Tyburn gave me an unimpressed look as she uncorked the bottle, and she made a point of pouring only two wine glasses. That was fine by me, as I’d never cared much for white wine, but I knew better than to say so. 

I did say, as she sat down back in her seat after handing a glass to Bev, “If you wanted Emilia involved, you just had to introduce her to us.”

Tyburn raised an eyebrow, seemingly unaware that behind her, Beverley was giving me the same dubious look over her wine glass, raised eyebrow and all. “And you would have cheerfully brought her in, would you? No suspicions, no doubts?” she prodded me.

I looked her squarely in the face. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Tyburn stared at me for a long moment, neither of us speaking. At last, when Tyburn finally started to talk again, her voice was deliberate, probing. Testing me. “This state of affairs can’t continue, Peter, even you must see that. It’s wasteful and messy.”

I risked a small, sardonic smile. “I’m the one who’s getting assassination attempts flung at me left and right, you don’t have to tell me that.”

To my surprise, Tyburn snorted at that. “Poison in your coffee, for Christ’s sake.”

It hadn’t been hilarious at the time, what with me choking and passing out in a Starbucks and landing in the A&E, _again_ , but in retrospect-- “Did you hear he’d used crushed scorpion tails to do it?” I asked, my mouth twitching. 

“ _Typical_ ,” Tyburn said, disgusted, and I couldn’t help it--I laughed. For the first time, I laughed about that day, and meant it. 

Both of Beverley’s eyebrows were shooting towards her hairline at this point, but Tyburn, miracle of miracles, was giving me a small smile in return. “Glad to see you’re keeping your sense of humor,” she told me, her voice dry.

“I’ve got a wannabe James Bond villain after me; if I didn’t keep my sense of humor, I’d go mad,” I said to her. 

Tyburn’s face didn’t exactly soften at that, but she visibly considered my words before saying, “The Faceless Man would be a good name for a spy film.”

“Wouldn’t it, though?” I said, and Tyburn actually _grinned_ at me. A brief grin, but it had still happened, with teeth and everything.

None of us spoke for a moment, but it was a comfortable sort of silence, for once. Finally Tyburn broke it, saying in a considering tone, “And now you’ve come here, looking for help.”

I didn’t bother denying it. “I know the official policy of the rivers has been that the conflict between the Faceless Man and the Folly is an affair between wizards, and nothing for you to be involved with,” I said carefully. “We understand that position, and we respect it, really. But the Faceless Man, his followers--they’re not going to stop. They won’t stop with me, and they won’t stop with Nightingale. And that _is_ something that concerns the Rivers. It concerns everyone, if I’m honest. This is a fight you want us to win.”

Tyburn didn’t argue with me, which was further proof that she’d come to the same conclusions I had. “So you want to come to an arrangement, then.”

“I’d like to come to an alliance, yeah,” I said. “We’re outmanned here, and you have connections, resources. You could help us chip away at the Faceless Man’s network within the Met, for a start.”

I kept quiet as Tyburn thought it over. Bev gave me a reassuring look, which gave me hope that my pitch had worked. 

I was prepared for Tyburn to press for more concessions--and prepared to give them, or at least to take the proposal to Nightingale. But instead Tyburn gave me a narrow look, and she asked, abruptly, “Have you thought about what would happen if you were killed? Not about how sad your parents would be, or what the funeral would be like--but the actual consequences of you dying at this point in time?”

It took me a second before I could speak. “Yes.”

“Have you?” Tyburn pressed me, not convinced. “Because it would mean the end of the Folly as you currently know it. The Met would resist letting Nightingale take on another apprentice from the force, not when the last two both came to such tragic ends. Not that their position would matter much, as something tells me he wouldn’t go looking for a new apprentice anytime soon, would he?”

I remembered the look on Nightingale’s face in the alley, the way that he promised me I wouldn’t die at Faceless’s hands, and I didn’t argue. There was Abigail, of course, and the promises we’d made her--but I wasn’t so foolish as to believe that all bets wouldn’t be off, if I was dead and buried before Abigail made it to Hendon.

“So the Folly would limp on for a while longer, but the rot would start to set in. And even if Nightingale was successful in beating the Faceless Man eventually, every positive step you’ve made in dragging that antiquated institution into the twenty-first century would die with you.” Tyburn leaned forward in her chair, saying, “And _that_ , Peter Grant, is why I am willing to make this alliance.”

I took a slow, deep breath. “Good,” I said, my voice only a little hoarse. “Glad to hear it.”

Tyburn sat back in her seat, giving me a sardonic smile. “I’m sure.”

I folded my hands on the table in front of me and said, carefully, “You know that I can’t promise anything when it comes to Williams--”

“She just needs the interview,,” Tyburn said, with total confidence. “Her qualifications will do the rest.”

“And even if she agrees to sign on, and even if Nightingale agrees to teach her, that doesn’t mean she’ll be right for the job,” I continued. “And her loyalties--”

“Would be to the Folly and not to the rivers, yes, obviously,” Tyburn said, just barely keeping from rolling her eyes. “Even if I wanted to install her as a spy, those oaths of yours are very thorough, trust me.”

“Oh, I know,” I said without thinking, and caught Beverley’s eye as I said it. I didn’t wince at the look on her face, but it was a near thing.

Tyburn, thankfully, pretended not to notice, although her eyes were sharp as they looked at me. “So then. You get your help, Emilia gets in the door, and I get a seat at the table. With all the necessary caveats in place--do we have a deal?”

There was only one answer to that, and I reached my hand out across the table to shake hers. “We do.”

Her hand was cool in mine, and her grip was strong. “I’m so pleased to hear it,” Tyburn murmured, and for just that second--her satisfied smile looked just like Beverley’s.

*

“Have I thanked you yet for setting this up?” I asked Beverley as we walked through Mayfair together. Beverley had said she wanted some air, and I certainly didn’t mind having the company--especially when Beverley had spent months working to bring Tyburn and her mum around to officially siding with the Folly against the Faceless Man.

Beverley grinned at me. “You have,” she said, “--but I don’t mind hearing it again.”

I smiled back at her. “Thank you.”

Beverley looked me over, her smile fading, but only a little. “You seem better today,” she declared finally. “Better than you have in a while.”

I didn’t try to deny it. “I do feel better,” I said, shrugging my shoulders with as much nonchalance as I could muster. “Turns out making plans for the future suits me, who knew?”

“Now you just have to get Nightingale to agree,” Beverley said. 

“He’ll come around,” I said, and Bev gave me a look. “What?”

“Nothing, you just sound very confident about that,” she said, shrugging with one shoulder. “Historically, Nightingale’s never been much for Tyburn getting involved with the Folly, that’s all.”

“It’s a good plan, though,” I said, slowly. “We need more bodies in the Folly. Williams is curious about magic, and that’s half the battle right there.” I looked to Beverley and said, reassuring, “He’ll come around to it, Bev, I swear. I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t think so.”

“Hmm,” Beverley said, but let it drop. We walked on together for half a block longer before she said, musingly, “Not sure if I should take credit for setting you and Tyburn up on the same team or not.” When I gave her a curious look, Beverley shot me a smirk and added, “I mean, either you’ll be terrifyingly effective-- or you’ll kill each other.”

“I can't speak for your sister, but in my defense, I'd like to point out that I explode a lot less things these days,” I said, in my driest tones, and was rewarded when Beverley let out a shout of laughter, her face splitting open in a wide smile. 

“Seriously, no more doom-saying,” I said once she’d settled back down and we’d stopped getting curious glances from the passerby. “It’ll be all right.”

Beverley looked almost startled by this, then her expression became more accessing. “You really mean that, don’t you.”

I took stock of myself before answering. It still felt strange, almost like hubris, but I had meant what I’d said to her earlier--the relief of having a plan for once, of thinking about the future rather than simply guarding against the latest disaster--it made a difference.

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Today I do.”

*

The lights were on in the tech cave when I got home, and sure enough, Nightingale was on the couch, paperwork spread across the table, and Sky Sports was on the television screen, showing highlights from the weekend’s football matches.

"How did it go?" Nightingale asked immediately as I came in.

I sat down next to him on the couch, our legs just barely brushing together. "Well, I'm inviting Williams over to tea, it looks like. The rest is up to you."

Nightingale's expression eased somewhat, but he still said, "Hmm. And you didn't give any guarantees?"

"Do I look like I'm new at this?" I asked him, eyebrow raised. Nightingale acknowledged my point with a nod, and I continued, "I made sure to preserve your autonomy, trust me. But she is a good candidate, Tyburn's not wrong there."

"I wasn't looking for candidates," Nightingale pointed out. "And we still don't know if this will even work."

"We don't know that it won't." I glanced down to look at the papers more closely, and realized it was a file on Williams. "She already knows Latin, you know. That's one good thing."

"Delightful," Nightingale said, dryly. "According to her records, she was going to become a nun, but gave it up for the Met instead."

"Something to ask her about during the job interview, then," I said. "That's got to be one hell of a story there." Nightingale made another disgruntled noise, and I offered next, "She didn't run from the demon trap. That counts for something.”

"And I should offer her an apprenticeship based on that?" Nightingale asked me, his expression dubious.

I smiled, because there was no way I could resist an opening like that. "Why not? You took me on as an apprentice just because I tried to interview a ghost."

Nightingale gave me a look at that, his eyes narrowing for a moment before his expression shifted, changed into something more...assessing. "Convince me," he said, sitting back in his seat. "Tell me why you want this--and don't tell me it's because you're expecting to die soon." His mouth had firmed at that last part, and I knew, for all of Tyburn's assurances, for all of Williams' qualifications, that if I didn’t handle this right--this was where the deal could fall apart.

"Because I want to build something," I told him, steadily. "Because I'm tired of lurching from crisis to crisis with nothing to show for it. I want--whether I die next week or four decades from now, I want to have some kind of legacy when I go. Even if that legacy is just convincing the Nightingale to take more apprentices for the Folly."

And as I watched his face, it was obvious that Tyburn's confidence hadn't been misplaced, because I _had_ convinced Nightingale, just like that. Only it wasn't manipulation, it wasn't me pulling strings--I just knew him. Knew him down to the bone, the same way that he knew me.

"All right," Nightingale said at last. "We'll bring her in, see what comes next."

"Okay," is all that I said, but Nightingale still rolled his eyes at the grin on my face. He was smiling too, though, a little bit.

It was a good feeling, seeing him like that, knowing I was the reason why--and I didn't want to let it go. I nodded at the television, where the football pundits were soundlessly arguing about something. "Since when do you follow the Premier League?"

"I don't," Nightingale said, looking rather disdainful. "But I wanted some sort of background noise while I looked this over, and this is the channel that was on." His disdain visibly increased as he looked over at the screen, and I laughed.

"Do you want me to look for something else? Or I can put a movie on."

Nightingale looked at me, and then said, "Yes, that would be quite nice."

We settled on _The Philadelphia Story_ \--Nightingale had never shown any interest in the action films I kept on the DVD shelf, and I’d never taken to the period dramas he and Molly liked, but it turned out that old screwball comedies worked for us both.

I’d seen the film before, but it was engrossing enough that it took me a while to realize Nightingale’s attention wasn’t on the screen. I looked over at him, and found him looking down at my left hand, where the sleeve of my shirt was pushed up to expose my bare wrist. 

He didn’t start or blush when he saw that I had noticed him looking. Instead, Nightingale nodded at my wrist and said, slowly, “You’ve never tried to cover it up with the watch.”

Okay, so we were going to talk about this. “No,” I said at last. “I never really saw the point.”

“Yes, that would make sense.” When Nightingale looked up, his eyes were shadowed, and I took in a long breath before I went all the way in. 

“I don’t remember a lot from that day,” I said to him. “I mean, I remember what happened, I remember being in the shop and everything going to hell--but I don’t remember the walk there, and the ambulance ride’s a total blur--but I still remember you showing up. I remember that.”

Nightingale swallowed. “I have to admit, I’m rather surprised that you do. They had you on very strong medication.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I was waiting for you to come and see me.”

This whole time we’d been on the sofa, we’d been sitting fairly close--which was normal for us, after years of working side by side, living together under the same roof, we’d become pretty relaxed about personal space, and usually, usually I didn’t think of it at all.

Until now. Now I was aware of exactly how much space was between my leg and his, now I knew just how far I’d have to reach to put my hand on his knee, and it wasn’t far at all. 

So I did. His knee was surprisingly bony beneath the fabric of his trousers, and I let my hand, my left hand, rest there as I looked up at him again. 

Nightingale was watching me, his eyes a little wide. His voice was lower now, rougher as he said, “They wouldn’t let me see you, not at first--I had to bring Abdul in, and then I had to convince _him_ to...anyway. I haven’t been that tempted to use a glamour on someone in decades.”

He looked down at where my hand still rested on his knee, and slowly, so carefully that it made my chest ache, he reached out and let his thumb skate along the scars, his touch lighter than silk. 

I exhaled, and Nightingale looked at me, his gaze catching on mine. “But finally I got into your room and you...you were awake, which surprised me.” And coherent, he had the grace to avoid saying. “You looked right at me, and...and you asked me if there was any chance he was still in your head. I promised you he wasn’t.”

“And then I asked how you could be so sure,” I finished for him. “And you said, “Because when I look at you, I know damn well what I'm looking at.”

Nightingale gave me a look. “Is that what you think I sound like?” he asked me, sounding a little scandalized.

I grinned, realizing that without meaning to, I'd slipped into my best impersonation of Nightingale’s posh, public school voice. But the smile faded a little as I remembered what I had to tell him next. “That _is_ what you sound like, but that's not the point. The point is...the point is that in the middle of that terrible, awful fucking day, that's the one clean memory I have. You looked at me, and you knew who I was.”

Nightingale swallowed, and said, “I’m hardly likely to forget, Peter.” His eyes never moved from my face, and his fingers were warm on the bare skin of my wrist. 

Right then in that moment, I wanted him so much that I could barely breathe.

Still, I forced myself to keep going, to keep talking. “I get why you thought we should wait. And if you still want to wait, then fine, but...but I’m here. I’m right here, and I’m telling you that I want this.” I licked my lips. “And you know me. So you know I’m not lying.”

Both of us were barely breathing at this point, and I was looking right at Nightingale--I couldn’t have looked at anything else--so I could see the way he was watching me, the way his gaze dropped down to my mouth, the way he kept leaning in before he could catch himself. 

“It’s still appalling timing,” Nightingale said, his voice rough, and he was definitely leaning in closer now, his hand circling around my wrist, anchoring me. 

“I’m still not complaining,” I said softly, and I was close enough to him now that his breath was warm on my lips. “Are you--”

Nightingale’s mouth was on mine before I could finish asking the question, which was an answer in and of itself. 

*

We went back into the Folly in near silence, heading upstairs to my bedroom by silent agreement. For all that I was going into uncharted territory, so to speak, I felt incredibly calm, anticipation and desire prickling along my spine as I walked down the corridor to my room, Nightingale right behind me.

The second the door was safely closed behind us, I was stepping into Nightingale’s space again, and his arm was already wrapping around my waist, and we were kissing again, our mouths fitting together like we’d done this a hundred times before, and then Nightingale’s hands were slipping under the hem of my shirt, his hand sliding up my back, and I groaned into his mouth--and then we stumbled to the bed, and I was falling backwards onto the sheets, and pulling Nightingale down on top of me. 

“Get this off, get this _off_ \--” I mumbled against his mouth, tugging unsuccessfully at his sweater. 

Nightingale kissed me hard on the mouth, and then pulled himself off me. As I gaped at him, my mouth tender and my mind still spinning, Nightingale ordered in a breathless tone, “Get your clothes off.”

Oh. Right. As Nightingale stood by the bed, stripping with a brisk efficiency that still left my mouth dry watching him, I was left to scramble out of my clothes on the bed, finally sitting up to wriggle out of my jeans, with a shimmy of my hips that must've looked ridiculous--but as I finally pulled my jeans and socks off and tossed them to the side, I glanced back up, and Nightingale was staring at me like I was the only thing left in the world worth looking at. 

As his eyes scanned over my bare chest, my legs, I finally said at last, my voice hoarse, “Jesus Christ, get over here and touch me already.”

He didn't need to be told twice. My breathing hitched as Nightingale crawled on top of me, his weight pinning me to the bed, his skin hot against mine--God, so much bare skin, and I could touch him, I could _have_ him---

Nightingale was staring down at my face, and I could feel him shuddering as I ran my fingers down his spine. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

I grinned up at him. “No, it's just--”

“Don't even start,” Nightingale muttered, and before I could finish my awful joke, he was kissing me once more, licking into my mouth as his hips ground down against mine, my cock rubbing against his hip, through my thin boxers. 

“Oh God,” I kept mumbling against his mouth, his cheek as Nightingale turned his attention to my jawline, the occasional graze of his teeth on my skin making me moan. “Oh my God--”

I was rocking my hips helplessly against his, searching out what friction I could get, wanting more, wanting everything that I could get from him, his hands on my skin, his mouth on me, his cock--

“Please,” I begged, shamelessly writhing against him, my hands clutching at his hips, his arse, trying to pull him in even closer. “I want, I just want you to--”

Nightingale swore at this and kissed me even harder, and then his mouth moved to the hollow of my throat, and lower still as he slid downwards, his mouth and hands moving across my chest as I tried to remember how to breathe. I shuddered as Nightingale’s breath gusted across my abdomen and said, my voice cracking, “Wait, are you--”

Nightingale paused and looked up at me, his eyes dark and his mouth wet, breathing almost as heavily as I was. “Peter. If I don’t get my mouth on you soon, I’m going to go mad. So unless you have any objections--”

“No,” I said, very faintly, my head falling back against the pillows. “No objections.”

“Thank God,” Nightingale muttered, and lowered his head back down. He started kissing the skin right below my navel, and I just barely bit back another moan. It went on like that, with me biting back my moans until Nightingale had my boxers off, my cock in his hand, and then he sucked on the head, his tongue swirling around the slit, and that was it for me, my voice was cracking as I said, “Oh God, _please_ \--”

Nightingale methodically kept going, his head bobbing as he sucked and licked my cock, his free hand holding my hips down in a vice grip as he took me apart with his hands and his hot wet mouth. I watched him, his lips red and stretched around my cock, his eyes closed like he was thoroughly enjoying himself, and he was, he’d told me so, he’d said he wanted his mouth on me--

“Please,” I begged, and Nightingale reached out and found my hand, and guided it to the back of his head, and Jesus Christ, he really couldn’t be asking me to--except he was, he was. 

Slowly, carefully, whimpers rising up in my throat all the while from what he was doing to me, I gripped his soft hair in my hands, and started to fuck his mouth. I couldn’t look any longer, the sight and fee of it was all too much, so I fell back against the pillow, gasping up at the ceiling as heat spread through my veins, down my spine and gathered low in my stomach, my hips stuttering despite my best efforts at control. 

Sooner than I wanted, I had to tug at his hair, warning, “I’m going to--”

Nightingale ignored that, sucking even harder, and I chanted softly, “Fuck, _fuck_ \--” And then I broke, and came in his mouth, my eyes closed and my body flying apart. 

As I slowly came back to myself, I managed to groan out, “Jesus, come here, I want--”

Nightingale moved up back up to kiss me, clearly trying to restrain himself and doing a terrible job of it, his body practically vibrating with tension. “Come here,” I sighed, and pulled him in for another kiss, sliding my hands down his back, feeling the muscles jump at my touch, and then grabbing him by the arse to pull him in even more. 

Nightingale groaned and rocked against my thigh, his cock thick and leaking, leaving wet smears against my skin. “Jesus,” he said against my throat, his hips grinding down against me, desperate, demanding. 

“I dreamed about this,” I said, the confession rising up out of nowhere. “I dreamed about having you in my bed, holding me down, fucking me--”

“Peter,” Nightingale groaned, his voice cracking around my name, and his hips lost their rhythm, as he thrust gracelessly against my hip until he finally came, slick and hot between us. 

As Nightingale collapsed against me, his body heavy and slippery with sweat, I carefully brushed my lips against his shoulder, smiling as Nightingale turned his face into the curve of my neck, panting for breath. 

“Well,” I said to the ceiling, grinning madly, “That was pretty fantastic.”

Nightingale burst out laughing at this, and when he lifted his head to look at me, his face had broken out into a huge smile, his eyes crinkled and his teeth flashing whitely in his face. I beamed back at him, and when I leaned in to kiss him once more, he was still smiling against my mouth. 

*

A night of good sex couldn’t solve all our problems, of course. Not now, and not in the future. 

But on the nights I had nightmares--or on the nights that Nightingale did--there was someone there in the bed to wake the other person up, a hand to grip tightly until the shaking stopped, a warm body to hold in the dark. 

It wasn’t that doing paperwork in the middle of the night was all that great either--but with Nightingale in his dressing robe next to me, frowning abstractly as he wrote another report--it was better than it had been before. 

And just to be clear--the sex was still really, really fantastic.

*

It was a warm Saturday afternoon when I met Emilia Williams in a small coffee shop, four blocks away from the Folly. She was flushed with excitement as she sat down across from me at the tiny table. 

I nodded at the counter. “Do you want to get something?”

“Oh, God no,” Emilia said, shaking her head. “Trust me, more caffeine is the last thing I need right now.” 

I looked her over for a moment, then said, “You know, this might’ve gone quicker had you just told me from the beginning who your cousin was married to.”

Emilia gave me a skeptical look, eyebrows up nearly to her hairline. “And that would’ve brought you around?” She shook her head quickly, adding, “Besides, that wasn’t how it was. I wasn’t thinking that...deliberately about it all.” It was my turn to give her a look, and Emilia flushed once more. “Well, not at _first_.”

“So what were you thinking?” I asked. 

Emilia didn’t reply at first, pursing her mouth as she thought it over. At last she gave me a sideways glance and said, slowly, “You know you’re a legend in the Met, right?”

I remained unmoved by this. “I can’t imagine it’s in a good way.”

Emilia rolled her eyes a little. “It’s not as bad as you think; people are mostly just in awe of you. The things they say you can do, the last-minute escapes from certain disaster. I’m not saying you’re popular or anything, just that...the stories they tell would grab anyone’s attention. And when I realized they weren’t pulling my leg, that there really were wizards in the police force...can you blame me for being curious? For wanting to know more?”

No, I couldn’t. I sipped at my water bottle--it had been sealed when I bought it--and stayed quiet, and listened. 

“I always knew that Mark’s wife, Ty, that she was...well, _different_ , somehow. My parents never really explained what that meant, I thought it was just because she was so posh-- but when I graduated from Hendon, she came to the ceremony, gave me her card and told me to stop by if I ever had any questions.” She gestured at me, saying, “I thought she was a bit mental, but then I found out about you lot, and I...I had so many questions about you, a lot of them, so I went to her. And that’s when she told me about you, about the Folly.”

I leaned back in my chair. “That must have been an interesting conversation.”

“Oh, it was,” Emilia agreed frankly. “Especially once I scraped my jaw off the floor.” I snorted at this, and Emilia beamed, clearly pleased with herself at getting a positive reaction out of me. 

Despite my desire to play the cynic, I did like her. I liked her visible enthusiasm, her total lack of a poker face. I liked how she’d kept looking for the answers to her questions, past the point where almost anyone else would have stopped.

“And that’s when she sent you off after us?” I asked next. 

Emilia frowned a little. “She didn’t send me anywhere. Look, I know you’re worried about me being a spy or whatever--”

“It’s happened before,” I said, as evenly as I could manage. Emilia opened her mouth to reply, and I cut her off. “But no, actually, I’m not worried at all about that.”

Emilia shut her mouth with a snap. “Oh.” A furrow appeared between her eyebrows, and she asked me next, “Not that I want you to think I’m a spy….but why don’t you? If I were in your position, I’d be the most paranoid bastard on the planet.”

I had to laugh at that. “Who says I’m not? But the reason I’m not worried is because if you’re a spy, it’s not for Tyburn, it’s for the Faceless Man.”

Emilia looked even more baffled at this. “That...does not seem like it would be a comforting thought.”

“Tyburn wants this to go well. You’re her family, her protege, and you’re the first real foothold she’s made with regards to the Folly. She’s got a lot invested in this, and if you break faith with us, her deal is broken. So if you were really a spy for the Faceless Man, or if you turned traitor…”

“She loses face,” Emilia realized.

I nodded. “You may not know your cousin’s family very well yet,” I said, “--but believe me, you do not want to be the person who causes Lady Ty to lose face. Ever.”

Emilia was looking at me as though I’d handed her a box, and she was trying to make up her mind as to whether she liked what was inside it. “So what you’re betting on,” she said slowly, “--is that if I am a spy, Ty will take care of it long before you’ll have to.”

“Yeah, that about covers it,” I said.

Emilia sat back in her chair and surveyed me, her nose wrinkling. “Ty said that you were cunning. She didn’t know the half of it, did she?”

“Tyburn doesn’t make a habit of underestimating me,” I said. “Not anymore, at least.” Emilia looked a little wide-eyed now, and I asked her, keeping my tone light, “You still want in, then?”

Emilia’s mouth firmed at this. “Yes,” she said, and the certainty in it was gratifying. 

“Why?”

She’d been expecting the question, as her determined expression didn’t falter. “Because I think I can be an asset, and I think you need the help. And because ever since I saw you in action, all I have wanted is to learn what you can do.”

I sat with that for a second. “Okay,” I said, screwing the cap onto my water bottle. “Let’s go.”

“Now?” Emilia asked, scrambling to her feet. 

“No, three months from now,” I said. “Yeah, now. Molly’s got tea waiting, and the first rule of the Folly is to never piss her off.”

Emilia was right at my side for the entire short walk to the Folly, peppering me with questions I either did my best to answer or fended off. I didn’t mind the impromptu interrogation, though, it helped me get a better sense of her, a better idea of where and how she’d fit into the Folly, once things were settled. 

We’d gone over her bank records, her school transcripts, we had statements from her neighbors and her governor and even a psych evaluation--but that still didn’t compare to walking next to Emilia, listening as she asked more questions about the Folly, what kind of lessons we’d start out with, how long it would take her before she’d be able to deflect bullets.

She wasn’t Lesley, of course. I didn’t _want_ her to be Lesley, even if it were possible for her to be. But I could see her in the Folly, having her own place there, not trying to fill the hole Lesley had left behind, but her own space in this long tradition that had been there for centuries, and would continue long after she and I were both gone. 

Once we reached the front door, Emilia let out a long whistle. “Nice.”

“You haven’t seen the inside yet,” I told her, and she gave me a wary look. 

“If this mansion is like the TARDIS or whatever--”

I had to laugh, both at the reference and imagining what Nightingale’s response would be if he heard it. “No, but do me a favor and make that Doctor Who reference somewhere Nightingale can hear you.”

Emilia narrowed her eyes at me. “They said you were supposed to be nice,” she declared finally. “I’m starting to think they lied.”

“Now, that’s just mean,” I said, and opened the door. 

As we stepped into the atrium, Emilia fell silent for the first time that afternoon. I turned to see her staring, mouth open, at the statue of Isaac Newton. “That’s Newton. They call you the _Isaacs_...oh my God. Oh my _God_.” 

“The statue does tend to catch people unawares,” Nightingale said as he approached us from the side entrance. He was dressed rather casually for him, wearing a pine-colored sweater that made his eyes look almost green in this lighting. “Which is the point, of course.” He held out his hand. “Good to see you again, Constable.”

Emilia shook his hand, looking momentarily tongue-tied. “It’s...very impressive.”

Nightingale didn’t press for more, not right then. “If you’ll follow me, Molly’s laid refreshments out for us.”

“Molly’s the station manager, right?” Emilia asked. “That’s what Peter implied, anyway…” And then Molly appeared, in that silent, sudden way of hers, all Edwardian horror in her apron and cap and long black hair, and Emilia immediately fell silent, her blue eyes going huge. 

Nightingale mostly pretended not to notice, though he shot me a look. “Ah. Molly, this is PC Emilia Williams, who may be joining us shortly. Constable, this is Molly. She does whatever needs doing in the Folly, and has been doing so for longer than you’ve been alive.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Emilia said faintly. Molly just gave a bobbing curtsey, and glided off. Emilia hesitantly followed, though not before giving me a pointed look over her shoulder. 

Nightingale and I hung back. “You might have given her more details,” he said. 

“Either she can handle it or not,” I said, shrugging. “And if I was going to warn her, it wouldn’t be about Molly.”

Nightingale gave me another look, his eyebrow crooking upward just so, and I was incredibly aware of the urge to do...something. Touch him, or kiss him. But that would wait for later, when we were alone and didn’t have company, or an upcoming job interview to conduct. 

Nightingale smiled faintly, like he could read my mind, and said after a moment, “It’s good to see you like this again.”

“Like what?”

“Optimistic,” Nightingale said, his voice quiet. “I’d missed seeing that from you.”

It took a second before I could respond, before I could answer with words instead of the kiss I wanted to give him. “Well, if this works out, maybe you’ll see it more often.”

“I hope so,” Nightingale said, and went off to join Emilia and Molly--but not before his hand brushed against the back of mine, his fingers grazing my knuckles. The touch was fleeting, but deliberate, and I watched Nightingale walk ahead of me--and then I smiled to myself, and followed him in.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Radio Silence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12373047) by [knight_tracer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_tracer/pseuds/knight_tracer)




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